


You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

by Alexismobeal



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Friendship, Wayhaught - Freeform, wynaught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexismobeal/pseuds/Alexismobeal
Summary: It's Wynonna's Birthday, and she is not in the partying mood, but Waverly, Nicole and Rachel have other ideas.  However, Haught doesn't just want to party, no Haught wants to talk and Wynonna would love nothing less.A little one-shot/ficlet idea that got a little long. Set after the 4A final.
Relationships: Waverly Earp & Nicole Haught, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp & Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 9
Kudos: 124





	You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this is a little rough around the edges. I wrote this today, in an attempt to get it done for Wynonna's Birthday, as inspiration took me today.

The night was still, and the air was close, unseasonably close for a mid-September evening in the Ghost River Triangle. The crickets chirped in the long grasses, just past the boundary of the homestead, as Wynonna sat in the front seat of her now silent truck, hands still resting on the wheel. She closed her eyes and sighed with a frown. At some point she was going to have to peel herself off of the leather seat of her truck and enter her family home, and she really did have to. The barn’s whisky supply had sadly run dry, so she would have to raid the homestead proper; that or go the rest of the evening sober and alone with her own maddening thoughts, something that no one should have to do on their birthday.

She groaned audibly in resignation as she sunk her head into her hands. She had been avoiding the place the whole day, avoiding her friends, her family, avoiding their sympathetic glances and pitying smiles. But if a woman was to have whisky, a woman would have to make sacrifices. And besides, she thought, as she reluctantly swung open the door of her truck, the house looked quiet enough. There were no lights in the windows, which yes, seemed a little odd and maybe at another time would have been cause for alarm, but demon business had been slow ever since… ever since their run in at Magpie Ranch, so Wynonna decided to count her blessings and take advantage. 

Wynonna smirked a little as she crept quietly up the veranda. To say she was happy with her plan was probably the understatement of the century. She’d sneak into the kitchen, swipe Haught’s stash of Pike Creek, and be out before you could say _whisky and ginger_. All in an effort to bring balance to the Universe, as it was only right that she do the dirty on the ex-Sheriff whilst her best friend was probably doing the dirty on her sister upstairs. 

'Fair’s fair,’ she muttered as she pulled on the handle of the screen door, cringing a little as its hinges squeaked malevolently in an attempt to rat her out. Wynonna was careful to not let it slam behind her.

‘Shhh’. 

Wynonna jumped at the sound, and her hand instinctually went to Peacemaker, hanging upon her hip. She spun around and threw her eyes over the darkened room. The stove that would normally still illuminate the homestead with its embers, even at this late hour, lay dormant and redundant with the heat of the night.

‘Don’t shush me’.

Wynonna’s hand squeezed the grip of Peacemaker and her eyes fixed keenly upon the open doorway that lead to the homestead stairs. ‘You picked the wrong house dickhead. Whoever you are,’ she warned, ‘You better show your face.’

A warm glow began to emanate from the kitchen. A flickering, warm light was thrown across the hallway and onto the bannisters, casting dark shadows that stretched dramatically across the wall behind. Wynonna narrowed her eyes and frowned. This wasn’t a home invasion. This was a…

‘Surprise!!’ Three voices sounded in unison as the lights of the homestead were thrown on. Wynonna had to shield her retinas from the attempt on their lives.

‘Tada!’ Waverly exclaimed, proudly. Cake in hands, candles lit, and a huge smile painted across her angelic face.

Wynonna raised a sceptical eyebrow. This wasn’t part of the plan, the universe balancing, bourbon stealing plan. ‘What is this?’ she asked, shortly, perhaps a little too shortly, as her sister’s smile faltered at the corners.

‘It’s a surprise… p-party,’ Waverly offered, sweetly, as a small wrinkle troubled her brow.

‘A gathering,’ Nicole offered as a more palatable alternative, whilst placing a supportive hand gently in the small of her fiancé’s back. 

‘Right,’ Waverly chimed in agreement; her faltering smile quickly finding its feet once more. ‘A gathering… for your birthday.’

‘It is your birthday, right?’ Rachel asked, perplexed, as she threw Nicole an incredulous eyebrow. The red head simply shrugged.

‘I guess it is’. The heir relented, nonchalantly.

With an excited squeal Waverly offloaded the cake into her fiancé’s arms and rushed to her sister, enveloping her with a joyful hug.

‘Happy birthday sis!’ she said earnestly, pressing insistent little kisses against her sister’s right cheek and temple.

Wynonna couldn’t hold back the sheepish smile that pulled at the corner of her lips. She sighed and relaxed into her sister’s embrace. ‘Thanks Baby Girl.’

Waverly pulled back with a delighted grin and relieved Nicole of the cake so the older woman could hug her best friend. ‘Happy birthday, Wynonna,’ the red head said, softly as she pulled the heir into a warm hug. Wynonna felt her arms and fingers grip at Nicole’s back on their own accord as she rested her chin upon the taller girl’s shoulder. 

This was it. This is what she’d been avoiding. 

Another pair of arms enveloped them as Rachel threw herself into the hugging best friends. ‘Happy birthday Auntie Nonna!’

Wynonna couldn’t repress the eye roll, or the dumb smile. ‘Shut up idiot,’ she huffed. ‘And you,’ she started, pushing Nicole away with a snort, ‘Gross,’ she quipped, clearly deflecting from any serious display of affection. ‘You should watch her,’ she said as she turned to Waverly, ‘She’s handsy.’

Waverly smirked, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, I know.’

‘Barf.’

‘Are you gonna blow out the candles?’ Rachel asked, ‘Or just let em burn?’

‘Okay _Smalldez_. Kids these days, am I right?’ Wynonna said, to no one in particular, but it was Nicole who offered her a soft, small smile in return.

A silence hung in the room, for a moment. Waverly gave her sister a small, hopeful smile, and Wynonna groaned inwardly. She was going to have to relent. How could she not, when her baby sister looked at her like that? And so, she relented, leaning down slowly to blow out the candles on her birthday cake, as her best friend gently held her hair back, her sister grinned affectionately, and as the flames of the candles danced within the dark of her eyes.

* * *

The sky was clearer now, and the heat had lifted ever so slightly. A cool breeze danced through the trees and whipped across the clearing in which the homestead stood. Wynonna sat upon the rough wood of the veranda stairs, and stared into the darkness of the tree-line, hugging herself slightly to protect herself from the cold, as the whisky she’d just thrown back burned the back of her throat. 

Rachel had fallen asleep on the couch after they’d agreed to let her have a glass of wine, which she’d of course been covertly topping up throughout the evening. _A girl after my own heart_ , Wynonna smiled. Nicole had carried the younger girl through to her bedroom and tucked her in as Waverly swooned lovingly behind, hands clasped and eyes glowing. 

Wynonna remembered smiling fondly at her baby sister and wondering wistfully how long it would be until there was another Earp mooching around the homestead with cankles, chronic back pain and an onerous bladder. They would be good parents, she thought. _The best_.

‘There enough there for me?’ came Nicole’s voice from behind her, pulling her roughly from her thoughts. _Jesus, that woman could be stealthy when she wanted to be_ , the screen door hadn’t even squeaked. The betrayal of it all.

This felt like a talk moment. It was going to be a talk. Her best friend wanted to talk. Wynonna sighed; she did not want to talk. ‘You got a spare glass?’ Wynonna asked, Nicole nodded her response and shook an empty glass in her direction. ‘Then fill her up.’ 

Maybe she could get Nicole Haught drunk. Yes, that was a plan. Get the girl, who can outdrink a revenant biker dude, drunk to avoid having a honest, open and meaningful conversation with one of the only people you’re supposed to be able to have honest, open and meaningful conversations with.

Nicole settled down gently, next to Wynonna, and reached across her friend to grab the bottle of whisky that was sat on the step.

‘Hmm, Pike Creek’, Nicole noted, as she poured a generous lick into her tumbler. ‘You’ve got good taste,’ She added, not without a hint of sarcasm.

‘The best’. Wynonna retorted, without a flicker of guilt in her voice, and with her eyes still transfixed upon the trees beyond the homestead.

‘It’s crazy how close the bucks get this time of year,’ Nicole mused, as she put her glass to her lips and followed Wynonna’s gaze, out towards the trees. ‘Even with the traps. Last year, Rachel found one in the barn one morning. Scared the shit out of her’. The red head laughed to herself, ruefully.

Wynonna pursed her lips and drew breath. This was indeed _the talk._ She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. She’d spent weeks avoiding it, weeks avoiding most things really. She’d get up, get dressed, leave the homestead and drive, just drive. For hours. She’d find a bar to drink and fight, and fight and drink, and when she did finally make her way home she’d fall into her bed in the barn and drink some more. All to avoid this, and perhaps to avoid him. Yeah, probably him too. 

Well, she wasn’t going to be able to avoid it anymore. She wasn’t going to be able to avoid her ridiculously noble best friend anymore, with her ridiculously irritating sympathetic eyes, and her ridiculously high moral standards. 

Wynonna sighed and decided it was time. She couldn’t run anymore, not from her family. She tipped her glass towards Nicole and gave her a small nod. Her best friend obliged and emptied a couple of digits into her glass. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it,’ she offered. _There, that wasn’t so hard._

Nicole smiled. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s not even…,’ The red head shook her head and paused, wanting to find the right words. Something Wynonna appreciated. ‘It wasn’t something you had any control over.’

That was beside the point. For Wynonna, nothing came above protecting her family, and a member of that family had been alone, suffering and scared for eighteen months, and that wasn’t something Wynonna could tolerate. ‘I should have been here. I should have been here for you.’

‘It worked out, Wynonna,’ Nicole said, with a resigned shrug as she searched for her friend’s eyes. ‘We’re all still here, still together.’

A small regretful laugh fell from Wynonna’s lips. ‘Yeah, not all of us.’

Nicole grimaced slightly at her misstep and an awkward silence grew between the two of them.

‘I er, got you something actually. For your birthday.’ Nicole remembered quickly, as she began to dig and rifle through her jacket pockets.

‘You didn’t have to-‘

‘Oh, I didn’t buy you anything.’

Wynonna scoffed. ‘Gee thanks, bestie’.

Nicole laughed softly and shook her head as a small blush began to colour her cheeks. ‘This is actually going to sound ridiculous.’

Wynonna frowned in curiosity. ‘Try me’.

‘Well,’ Nicole was now fiddling with something hidden within her jacket pocket, running her fingers over whatever lay inside. ‘I er, I got it for last year. In case you…’

‘Came home?’ _Wow_ , Wynonna was not expecting that. Suddenly she was filled with a crushing sadness just saying the words. _Poor Nicole_. In reflection, perhaps her current spell of solitude didn’t look so bad. 

‘Yeah. Looking back, it feels dumb but..’ 

Wynonna felt Nicole shift, and cast her eyes down uncomfortably. She reached out and grasped the red head’s hand. Giving it a firm squeeze, she demanded Nicole met her eyes. What she found there was a woman still wrestling with her own demons, but a woman who was brave enough to take them on. She swallowed the lump that was threatening to rise in her throat. ‘It’s not dumb. You hear me?’ she said, somewhat coarsely.

‘Well it’s…’ Nicole pulled her hand from her jacket and unfurled her fingers from around what looked like a jewellery box.

The Earp Heir raised a speculative eyebrow. ‘Jewellery? Naughty Haughty, you shouldn’t have’. Wynonna gave Nicole’s arm a playful slap and the red head just rolled her eyes.

‘Open it,’ she urged, nervously.

With a little curious frown, Wynonna popped the small box open and couldn’t help but smile at what she found inside. ‘You got me my black badge... badge?’

Nicole nodded matter-of-factly. ‘Turn it over.’

Wynonna acquiesced. ‘You got me my black badge badge with numbers on it.’

‘At the academy, the people I trained with, we became family. And it’s kind of a tradition, when you graduate, to gift a badge to your squad.’ Wynonna played her finger across the numbers engraved there, the edges were rough, non-uniform and sharp in places, as if the shapes had been made by hand. ‘Everyone engraves their badge numbers on it so that wherever you go and wherever you end up serving, you take your family with you.’ Wynonna looked up and found Nicole’s eyes once more, Nicole had engraved the badge herself. ‘There’s a tonne of superstition around it of course, but people say that if you keep it with you, it’ll protect you, like a family should.’

‘Wow,’ Wynonna managed to choke out. It was all she could muster. Nicole had rendered the normally loquacious Wynonna Earp speechless. This was probably the most thoughtful present she’d ever received, and of course it just had to be from Nicole Haught. 

‘So,’ Nicole continued, much to Wynonna's relief, ‘I found your old badge in some of the boxes we salvaged from the Sheriff’s Department, and I engraved it. It has all our birthdays on it. Rachel made sure I put hers on there too’.

‘That kid…’ Wynonna couldn’t help but grin as she shook her head.

‘I wanted to make sure next time we were separated, that we’d still all be together in some way. Now that I say it out loud it sounds a little weird…’

‘No, no it doesn’t so weird.’ Wynonna grazed her thumb over the numbers again, taking in every birthday. _1995, 1989, 1990… 1851._ ‘I love it,’ she whispered, quietly. ‘Thank you.’

Once again, they sat in silence, this time comfortably, as Wynonna turned the badge over in her hands. ‘I meant what I said, Wynonna. _Wherever_ you go. _Wherever_ you find yourself.’ 

Wynonna’s hand found Haught’s, as her head found Haught’s shoulder. Wynonna felt Nicole place a soft kiss upon the top of her head, before the red head took another long sip of whisky and settled back to watching the tree-line, on the lookout for bucks walking after midnight.

‘I know we’ve not talked much, well, at all really, about Holt…?’ Wynonna’s eyes snapped closed. She’d thought for a moment that she’d gotten away with it, but no, Sergeant Haught had done her good. False sense of security, a nice gift, a few secret tears… then bam! You murdered a guy and now I want to hold you to account with my strict and unwavering moral code and unshakingly upright and virtuous values. _It had all been going so well._ ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it.’ _That was an understatement._

Wynonna’s jaw tightened and she grimaced. Was there an option where if she pretended to fall asleep on Haught’s shoulder she could claim plausible deniability?

‘I just wanted you to know,’ Nicole continued, ‘That I… I understand.’ She felt Nicole’s hand settle around her waist, and she found herself leaning into her friend even further. ‘Wynonna, you do things that I could never do, that I don’t have the strength to do, for our family. It has to be you. Because I don’t have the strength to carry that burden.’

‘That’s because you’re not a murderer Nicole, you’re good, too good.’ Wynonna whispered, her voice nearly breaking, because she knew, whatever the reason, whatever her justification, she’d shot that man in the back, and she would have to live with that. She’d murdered Holt.

‘And you’re necessary.’

‘A necessary evil, maybe.’

Nicole’s fingers squeezed her side as she pulled away from Wynonna, turning to face her on the homestead veranda. Their eyes met. It was only then that Nicole had been able to see the tears that were glistening in Wynonna’s eyes. The red head gripped her friend’s hands once more. 

‘Good people make get to make good decisions, Wynonna. The best people, the strongest of us, have to make the difficult ones. I’m not going to pretend that if I were in your shoes, I’d have made the same choice, but I can’t pretend that I haven’t been willing to trade one man’s life for the lives of the ones that I love. Some evils _are_ necessary.’

‘Hey,’ came Waverly’s voice, from behind the screen door. Wynonna surprised herself when she didn’t pull her hands away from Nicole’s, in fact, she only gripped them tighter. ‘I’m turning in,’ her sister’s eyes flicked from Wynonna and then to Nicole as she made her way out onto the veranda. ‘Are you…?’ The younger Earp gestured behind her, back inside the homestead, and to her and Nicole’s _boudoir_. ‘Do you want to…?’

‘I’ll just be a minute, Waves’. Nicole offered Waverly a small, reassuring smile.

‘No, I don’t want to keep you…’ Wynonna’s mouth said one thing, her grip on Nicole’s hands said another.

‘No, it’s fine, I’ll be inside in a minute, baby. Think you can wait for me?’

Waverly leant forward and placed a lingering kiss on Nicole’s lips. ‘I’d wait forever.’

‘Wow,’ Wynonna scoffed, as Waverly leaned across to her sister and pressed another kiss to the top of the Earp Heir’s head. ‘That’s awful. Get away.’ 

‘Good night Wynonna. Happy Birthday,’ Waverly said with a sad smile, looking back over her shoulder, from the screen door.

‘Good night baby girl’.

Once Waverly was inside and the door closed, Wynonna turned back to Nicole and smiled earnestly.

‘Thank you, for this. I’ve enjoyed myself’.

Nicole narrowed her eyes and gave her friend a sceptical look. ‘You sure? I’m pretty sure I made you cry’.

Wynonna shrugged as a contented laugh escaped her. ‘Well, it’s all relative.’

The red head nodded, she certainly understood. ‘Just so you know, I didn’t invite him. That’s why he’s not here.’ Wynonna withdrew her hands from Nicole’s. She knew what she was doing, she could feel the tension working its way back into her shoulders, she could feel her demeanour changing, her walls going back up.

‘Cool.’ And she was back to one-word answers. _God Wynonna, you can be such a dickhead._

‘I just thought I’d keep it to the homestead tonight,’ Nicole explained.

‘Thanks.’ And Wynonna was grateful, she was grateful to know that he hadn’t rejected her a second time, or at least, hadn’t been given the opportunity to. 

Nicole smiled sadly at her friend, and Wynonna got the feeling that this wasn’t going to be their last little talk. Nicole Haught could be relentless when she wanted something, and Wynonna got the distinct impression that the one thing her best friend wanted more than anything else, was _her_ best friend back. ‘You’re welcome Wynonna. I’m gonna head…’. Nicole gestured, much like Waverly, to the boudoir. 

‘Go get her, cowboy’. 

The red head threw her a slightly embarrassed smile and began to head inside, as Wynonna, with a little effort, got to her feet and trudged rather unsteadily towards the barn. 

Her hand settled upon the door handle and she was about to tug the thing open when she spun on her heel and called back to her friend. ‘Nicole?!’ she yelled, at the top of her lungs. Yes, it was well after midnight, but the only soul asleep for miles around was well and truly gone and would be sleeping off a hangover in the morning. Plus, it her was her land, she could raise her fucking voice if she wanted to.

After a moment, the screen door swung back open and her best friend’s face peered back out at her, into the darkness. Wynonna could just about make out the bemused look painted across her features, illuminated under the light of the moon. 

‘I would do it again. For this,’ Wynonna gestured to the homestead, to her family home. ‘For the both of you. I would do it again in an instant,’ she said again. She needed Nicole to know, to understand.

‘I know,’ Nicole spoke, assuredly. ‘And I’ll be here if you do.’ And that was all Wynonna needed. ‘Happy Birthday, Wynonna’.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Happy Birthday Wynonna Earp! You da best.


End file.
